Dirty Thirty

My 30th birthday is knocking at my door. It's right around the corner and about to bite me on my ass.

Monday I'll be 30, launching myself into my third decade as a human being on this planet. Perhaps for a lack of anything else to do and a little bit of time on my hands, I've decided I should dedicate a blog entry to the subject. It is, after all, a big deal, isn't it? Eh, I think not. It's just another day, the sun will rise and it will probably be chilly, a breeze might hang off the skeletal branches on the tree above our house, but it will set, and time will go on, and the day will pass and another will come. I'm not the only one with a birthday, and if anything, I should be celebrating my parents on that day.

I'm still here, which is nice. I think, all in all, I'm doing quite well. I feel I've been blessed so far, with family and friends and the things I love all gathered in heaps around me. I lucked out.

I'm back living in Sacramento, not downtown but in east Sac, where the trees are much prettier this time of year and you don't so often see derelicts rummaging through your garbage bins or hear the 2am bar crowd stumbling home drunk in the moonlight. Nothing against derelicts. I have a job and I'm making money. I'm keeping on top of my bills, not just barely but kinda almost.. My lifestyle is simple though, and I don't find myself wanting much, at least not in the material sense. I dream of travel but I'll always dream of that. Anyway, it's nice to dream of something.

Next year I'm planning on moving abroad again. I'll be honest and admit that I don't know where I'll end up or what I'll be doing, but I know one thing - I'll be gone. Chances are, I won't be going alone. I've found someone who also dreams, and, low and behold, dreams of very similar things. He's open to embracing mine and merging his to make an ours. Sweet! And just how long have I been looking for this??

Berlin is in the race, natürlich, but so is teaching English in Asia. Tawain sounds promising, as does Vietnam. For many of those jobs, only a Bachelor's degree is required, and often times, a salary accompanies room and board and sometimes a round trip flight.

Really, what else am I doing? Our economy is in the shitter; California's unemployment rate is nearing 20%, and I graduated college 6 years ago and work at a restaurant. It's not like I'm doing a whole hell of a lot here - really, the only thing keeping me in the area is my family. If I had a partner to run away to Europe or Asia for a couple of years, living the expat "poor but sexy" lifestyle, I'd be stoked as a mother trucker. Looks like this dream is on the verge of becoming a reality.

In 1544, a Portuguese ship sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, or "Beautiful Island." Don't just take their word for it. See for yourself.









A change of scenery is always good, as is a new perspective. It scares me a little to think of going somewhere as far and as foreign as this little heavily colonized, tropical (yes, tropical!) economic superpower of an island off the southeast coast of China, but a little fear is good. Manageable, too, especially if I don't go alone.

So I'll be thirty on Monday and it should be good. Life, so far, has been good. The past is rosy and the future is bright. I've got my dreams, I've got my plans, I've really got nothing to complain about; only, perhaps, too few stamps on my passport.

How to get a work visa for Germany

Friends,

So you've found yourself, somehow, The following post is lengthy but priceless.

german/berlin links - tandem partners and internships

Expat resources, Germany:
http://www.erstenachhilfe.de
here is the link for the website where you can find
>>tandem-partners or where you can offer your english
>>teaching skills.
>>http://www.erstenachhilfe.de
>>registration is free and there are lots of berlin
>>people registered.

I've just got a press-information about internships:

This is the site:

http://www.praktika.de/

Offering internships in Germany:

http://www.praktika.de/praktikum.html

If your looking for an internship in other countries they provide information here:

http://www.praktika.de/cms/Auslandspraktikum.959.0.html

Infos about Countries + interships-offer:

http://ausland.praktika.de/home/praktikanten/katalog.phtml

Ordering the PRINTED new catalogue about internships abroad here:

http://www.praktika.de/cms/anfordern.1433.0.html

spark

It's funny, the connections we form with certain people, the lack of those that are never formed with others. How does one person, one day, strike you in the way a wooden match would when dragged across a brick fireplace, with such a spark and such an energy that they are forever imprinted in your mind? And depending on certain variables - the size of the spark, the voracity with which it was lit, and the length of time before the fire (when there was only darkness and it was cold) - the imprint grows. The connection strengthens. The purest, wildest of fires burn fast and with intensity. Chaotic.

I am drawn to the flames. I've stretched my arms out, palms facing away from me, and found the fire. It wasn't hard to find; I helped strike the match.

It's been warmer lately, and bright. Aren't these things supposed to start in the spring? Is it fitting that we found each other after the days have started shrinking and the sun's heat is at half mast and I need to put on my warmest socks and bundle my skinny body up into layers of thin clothing and burrow deep down into my double bed to escape the chill? You're there often, underneath the covers with me. That's when it gets hot enough for the clothes to come off.

And that will be my fall. The trees that line our streets will burn with orange and spark with gold and then fall will turn into winter. It will start getting wetter. The trees will shed their clothes too and the rain will come often. Piles of leaves will turn to mush and start to disintegrate, their energy seeping back into the vessel from which it came. It will get colder but I don't mind. I'll have you.

Eventually the sun will want come out and play, and so will the birds. The leaves will be picked up or become compost, now blackened with rot. Buds of green will burst open into reds and pinks and whites on the trees on our streets, and the water that runs off the mountains and down through our rivers will be warm enough to swim in. The same shades of green, and different ones too, will cover the landscape, from lawns to fields, and critters will stir in the ground and in the sky, their offspring falling out of nests or being eaten by predators or growing up to mate and have babies of their own.

Fires will ignite in the hills. We can find a cliff overlooking a valley, some electric orange ball of energy licking and engulfing and blazing below. We can stand there, bodies touching, and feel the heat.

Fuck Fridays is back in Sacramento.

October 17th work

The kind of thing I have to experience at my place of work is interesting, to say the least. Unsettling, to say it best. I've been to hell and I'll spell it brunch. I am a hostess at a restaurant downtown - and kids, I'll shit you not and tell you it's the place to go for your hangover with a side of breakfast.

But for me, I no longer have the privilege of weekend brunch. I won't be enjoying it; I'll be working it. Taking names and numbers and handing out pagers, constructing puzzles out of tables. I wear a smile well and often - I soothe the weary, the hungry, the cranky. I fluctuate so that you will have a wonderful experience. It may take a good deal of energy, but I'm usually brimming it, even first thing in the morning, if forced. The coffee helps a great deal, and honestly, I enjoy running around and chatting with people all over the restaurant. It keeps me busy.

But because I work brunches, I have to experience a loss. Beautiful breakfasty things slip away. Mimosas no longer have a meaning to me; they are transformed into a shiny orange bulbous tumors on a glass stick. The french toast is always burnt. The potatoes are over-fried. The company is cranky and hungry and the syrup-covered infant at the table next to you is shrieking. Pleasant.

So I run around and I hand out menus and then I pick up menus and I try to appease the servers by rotating the sections fairly and try to appease the customers by seating them in desirable sections and make small chat with the customers and try not to trip over the kids who are running around unsupervised while avoiding the plate of food that is being run out the door and the bosses who are either flirting or scolding or joking with the rest of the staff. It's a hectic place. I'm surprised so many customers want to deal with that. I wonder if, while stuffing a fat piece of our famous french toast into their fat greasy mouths, the customers are able to feel the pulsating energy that engulfs the places, seeping out of the mop closet in the back and sizzling with the pomme frittes in the deep fryer, gurgling along with the scalding coffees behind the bar or oozing out of the ketchup bottles. I wonder indeed.

I dream of going out to breakfast with friends. I cherish it when it happens. I never go to my restaurant, I never dream about work, but I dream about my friends at work. The other day I dreampt I was smoking a spliff with my boss. I wonder if he'd be interested. Maybe in the next dream I'll offer him some.

Oh help me god I'm building a website!

I'm about to wade through the choppy ocean waves of website development, chasing the idea that could quite lead to the manifestation of a tangible form of my dream, all the while gasping for breath and fighting off sharks, trying to stay afloat.

Welcome that to the world of creating a one-dimensional structure on the internet. Friends, I'm building a website. I've scoured the internet, or "the web," as the cool kids say, for a cozy little spot to burrow down inside of and nest for a while. Building. I thought of a name and bought it and am starting to construct.

The website I'm building is called The Conscious Nomad. It's true, there's nothing there yet but don't fear friends! Something will be there soon. In fact, I should tell you that I'm currently looking for writers, either travelers who write well, back-packers who blog, or writers who travel write. I'll take any submissions. Just think travel - but consciously. Look for the official invitation and more on the subject of conscious travel in the next blog, coming very soon.

But, in the beginning... There was the World-Wide-Web. That's a mouthful, for sure. So is WWW, really, and especially the way our ex-idiot-in-chief president used to pronounce the letter. Ah, the world-wide-web. Worldwide! Where would I be without you? You came into my life when I was just a young lass of 13. I would stay up way too late, using my father's computer to log in to CompuServe and chat with faceless humans all over the states. Mostly, we'd chat about music - Nirvana and Pearl Jam were the ones that I liked the most back then. Heck, Eddie Vedder circa 1993-1997 was a big topic for me. I had such a crush on him. Eddie, if you're out there, I'm available!! ;)


My relationship to the World Wide Web was indeed magical. World Wide Web, I fell in love with you then, a little bit. Ours was a co-dependent relationship - you liked the feel of human fingers on your buttons and I was absolutely enthralled by your endless possibilities. I'm still in love with you in, internet, and you're still as elusive and enigmatic as ever. A little bit like the Loch Ness monster. Just not as wet and chilly.

The internet is everywhere. It's vast, stunning. Stretching. Expanding to farther and farther slightly darkened corners of the earth. Hell, it's even finally working itself into Africa, broadband style, so that the dark continent will soon be lightened up a bit and can finally start inching it's way toward a level playing field to compete with the rest of the world upon.

It's everywhere. It's wireless signal is creeping slowly out of your home office and into the hallway, circling around your kitchen frigerator. It's crawling on the floor and into the dining room, slithering around your couch until up on the sofa and right in your face. The world-wide-web, much like Mr. Lovegrove, is ubiquitous, and it's getting bigger by the nano-second, fucking and multiplying like rabbits and their wretchedly cute offspring.

The Conscious Nomad is my new project and I'm finally dedicating time (not nearly enough, though) to it, like a poor little unattended baby. There, there, child, I'll come back to you soon. My problem is, I suppose, time management. I'm so fixated to living in the now that I let the now overtake me, leaving no breathing room for later. Maybe all this "be here now" mantra stuff I've adopted is reaching into my brain and taking hold of the frontal lobe or wherever it is that old Id of mine is located and sneaking up and shaking it's hand, helping the little Id on it's way. Perhaps this living in the now, care little about the future body of thought has gotten to be too easy to accept. I think that's why I'm trying to devote time to this project; this idea, this website, this realization that I can manifest something if I keep moving forward and try the best I can. I believe in this for everyone; being conscious that your situation is changeable, maliable, flexible. I don't want to hear excuses. Sometimes we can be in pretty deep; I realize that. But then we must make little changes here and there. They do make a difference.

I like the budhist way of living. I don't know a great deal about it but what I know I agree with and respect. I try to incorporate some of that tradition into my life; it just makes sense. The living in the now, the acceptance that perhaps this is all we have, this moment, and everything else doesn't exist. I don't mean to deduct importance from the past, or question the leviety of the future, but all I have for sure is right now.

I do have a tendency to ramble, don't I? What does that characteristic say about someone? (Rhetorical, of course). Back to the website. Having a project is important. Having goals are important. Having lists and being able to cross items off said list is important. That's what I'm trying to do; keep moving forward. Maybe I had felt a bit stagnant there for a while, and still feel a bit in limbo (do I stay in California? Do I go back to Berlin?) and, admittedly, always staying incredibly busy, but I'm discovering avenues to pursue that hopefully lead to forward motion and freedom. I just need to dedicate the appropriate amount of time to realizing these things.

Manifest. Don't forget it.

So I'm stoked. And I'm killing time, waiting for a conformation email to reach me from WordPress headquarters. And then I'll be off to start the process - which, at this point, will be downloading WordPress software on my computer and installing. Then I'll be off to build! So, if you'll excuse me, I must be running. It's time to kickstart the ignition and take off.

Put on your thinking cap

and write yourself a blog. To sort it all out. Because, right now, like Kyle from work says (and, holy HELL if I had not turned on this computer to write myself a quick blog I would have completely forgotten to call the kid to let him know about the evening's events - more later on that) "I'm a little cloudy." Meaning, literally, I'm a tad bit stoned; figuratively, I got some shit I got to sort out, in my head."

So welcome to my thinking session.

I've had a great day. It's at the in-between right now; the I'm-here-but-I'm-supposed-to-be-on-my-way-to-there state

Google Fortune / Google Biz Kit is a SCAM

And I just got taken.

For $1.97. But it could have easily been more. A link was sent to me via email from my father, who I trust. So I clicked and I read and I signed up. The website looked legit; a falsified site called The New York Gazette (which appears like a newspaper but in small print is written something like "not affiliated with any newspaper publication") and hypes up the product - a product that boasts that even children can work for home, do virtually nothing, pay virtually nothing, and make a shit load! What a deal! Well I totally fell for it. We must remember, kids, what dear old Grandmother used to say: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

End result: I've had to cancel my debit card. Shame, shame, shame on me for giving that site my number over the internet. Not a smart move. And of course that $1.97, which, for now, I'll deduct from my "that was a really stupid move" account.

Goodbye stranger

Does everyone remember the drug dealer? I wrote a blog or two, two or three blogs back, about this gentleman. Well, sports fans, I've received news. He was allegedly recently arrested. On charges that I will refrain from mentioning at this point, not only because they make me feel very nauseas inside, but because the facts haven't been verified yet. Awesome. I sure know how to pick 'em, eh?

I did, however, call the Davis county jail yesterday and spoke with a very unfriendly, unhelpful woman who told me "well why don't you just ask him yourself" when I asked if she could look up if they his name on her inmate list. Thanks bitch. I was hoping that my questions would have been answered, will be answered. I would like to know if it is true. I would like to say it doesn't matter either way. But it does. Don't get me wrong, I'm still done with him, done with that situation, and hopefully done with dating crazy men in their mid-twenties, but I still want to know if it's true. It most likely is.

Gosh golly, I guess I'm a bit frustrated. Do I tell people, "Oh yeah, the last guy I dated is in jail on charges I would rather not discuss." Hmm? At least I was able to get out of that one before it went barreling off a cliff with me strapped inside, screaming and plummeting.

On a somewhat unrelated side note, I've decided to sign up for okcupid.com. (Remember I said I was frustrated?) Arghhh. Argh argh and double argh. Maybe signing up for - gulp - online dating will only further frustrate me. Yeah, online dating, friends. I'm going to try it out and see how it goes. Does it offer criminal background checks? It should! No, actually, to be honest, I had also just tried a 3 month trial membership on Match.com that ended as uneventfully as it started. I met - let's see - 1, 2, 3 guys from Match.com. Two were quite nice, just no sparks. One is now a peripheral friend. The third guy was not cool, definitely not cool, in a sorta pushy and almost grabby way. I got out of there as fast as I could muster.

Back to the facts. I'm single and I'm ready to mingle. Really! I'm not gonna lie about it. I'm a bad ass chick, too, let me tell you. And that's why I can post this sort of shit on my blog. I don't care what people think about me; I don't really care if ya like me or if you don't. I'm just me and I think that I'm a pretty chill chickadee. I'm trying to live my life in the most badass sort of way right now. Making every moment count, although still, in the back of my mind, dreaming about Europe, about Berlin. I can't wait to go back.

So I'm off to finish up my new okcupid.com profile - oh how I detest yet secretly kinda like those things - and start trolling for guys who are hopefully far from the troll type. Wish me luck.

Be here now.

Well internet friends, I'm back! Back on the internet, back in a new place, back working for the man - possibly, about to lose my job - and back on the market again. Yes fellas, I'm single. Step right up.

Pretty cool, eh?

I wanted to send a near -end of summer shout out to all of you. August is almost done. The sun is slowly disappearing. Your trees will lose their foliage soon. It's sweater time, my friends.

Get ready. Hot cocoa and marshmellows by the fir- wait, what the heck, it's still summer! And I'm day-dreaming about winter! Remember kids, buddha says, "Be Here Now."

Now off with you.

Well, friends, I'm back. Back up north in Sacramento, where the breeze is slight but sometimes still and the sun is hot and the streets are tree-lined and shady. The shops and cafes and freeways are simple and accessible. San Diego was beautiful. San Diego has the ocean, the surfers, the cool air, the hills and valleys and bomb mexican food. But I'm glad to be home, although that too will be changing soon.

In two weeks I'm moving out, it's looking like more changes are on the horizon. So I go back to work and see my friends and exist in Sacramento but it feels like my heart is elsewhere. German music is on the radio, I've just finished a spliff, and it seems that my heart is in Europe. My heart is in Berlin. I don't know how it makes me feel that when I look at Facebook and see photos and updates from friends back there. I suppose it's a bittersweetness; I'm happy for them but wish I could join in the fun, especially when my friend Christian posts his photos from the Kit Kat Club in Friedrichshain, Berlin. That, friends, was a place like no other.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Kit Kat Club, I'll say it in two words: Hedonistic Debauchery. Wait. Three words. Hedonistic Sexual Debauchery. That's better.

Kit Kat is located in Friedrichshain, Berlin, on the corner of

I might have to throw up a warning for our younger views, but I think it's appropriate to share some of my Kit Kat Club photos with you.

Road Trip 09

I'm going to San Diego tomorrow. Leaving right after work, driving down with Ashley and Katie in Ashley's black or so dark blue it looks black under moonlight early 2000 volvo. Tough as nails. Like a tank.

We're driving down straight after work, we're getting the fuck outta dodge. This is my summer trip, folks. This is it. Stuck in the system of the United States' rapidly drowning economy, I can't quite take trips with the frequency I would like. But I'm leaving for 5 days and 4 nights - that's solid! We'll be staying with Ashley's friend Benny. I'm determined to go rollerskating next to the ocean, to find some tacky Chinese lanterns to decorate my new backyard, to swim in warm, Southern California waters.

I'm getting out and the gettin's gonna be good.

Rock Stars have way more fun than normal people

It's 3:04 in the morning and I've just returned from a rock-star themed party at the Flame Club -a somewhat scummy bar located across the street from the Memorial Auditorium in downtown Sacramento. The place was closed for the night, only friends were allowed in. Drink tickets were given at the door, as well as poker chips for several card tables that were set up, and there was food galore! I myself gorged mostly on the chocolate-dipped strawberries, but satisfied my craving for something savory with the shrimp cocktail. Mmmm..... chocolate strawberries and shrimp cocktail. Almost makes ya want to throw up a bit in your mouth, right? Well it was tasty. And I was drunk. Perhaps that's why the combo was so delicious!The dj was rocking it and I danced until the vintage shoes on my feet could move no more.

A couple friends came over earlier; we drank red wine and played dress up. Ashley went as Joan Jett, Lorea'l as Gwen Stefani (singing all the throughout the night, "the shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S), and me, you ask? What alter ego did I don for the night? None other than Madonna. Somehow, a black corset on top of a red fishnet long sleeved shirt, home-made lacy black pettifore-slash-tu-tu thing as a skirt, and purple, yellow, pink and blue heels from the 80s worked well. A couple guests at the party even knew who I was. Sweet.


After we took this photo, Ashley and I realized just how tall I really am compared to her. She looks a little pip-squeak compared to my giganticness! You know, though, if I had actually started preparing for the party before the day of, if I had had a bit more time to scour the thrift stores for a better costume, I woulda gone as Prince. No doubt about it. Purple velvety clothing, white ruffles, jerry curl in my white girl hair - err, ok, maybe not the jerry curls. But velvet and ruffles, for sure. Aww, cute little androgynous Prince. I just want to pinch his cute little butt cheeks!


Anyway, I get back home and start playing around in Google. Unfortunately, up until this time, my hours on the internet have not been spent wisely. Admittedly, my navigation rarely spawns beyond Facebook, Google, Craigslist, and the New York Times. Where, or where, are the bad ass websites? Where can I actually go to feel good about wasting time inside on the internet? Honestly, I try to keep my relationship with my computer short and sweet - I know there's a whole world out there, a world full of rivers and foreign countries and beautiful people - so I try to keep it brief. In and out.

However...

I've decided I'm going to make a living on the internet. Perhaps I've been inspired by a new friend, or perhaps it's been something creeping closer and closer into view. Ever since I returned from Berlin, the world of internet sales (vis a vis my father's Ebay business - brokering used radio station equipment) has been all up in my grill. It's time to become open to the possibilities of selling over the internet.

I'll embrace it. I'll welcome Ebay, I'll welcome Pay Pal. Internet commerce, welcome to my house! It's very, very good to have you. I want to build a website (hopefully using the sweet web design skills of my ex of four years, Jonathan, little boy wonder who now works for Apple), and sell stuff through it. I'd like to write articles about the products, do reviews, and have freelancers contribute as well. I'll pick products that I like, that I trust, that I recommend, and make them available to the world. All in one place. All awesome. All on a website that I will have created. Therefore, all revenue from the sales of the products I choose, as well as any ads placed on the website, will go to me... Muah ha ha haaaahhh!!

Ahem. I want to learn more. I heard today that DUI attorney ads, placed on the right websites, will earn the owner of that website up to $100 bucks. A hundred dollars! Can you believe it?? My good friend Megan has a younger brother, Byron. He's a reggae dj in Sacramento, and, although I love the kid to death, he's dealing with his second DUI. How could you be so stupid?? First of all, is fucking costly. Second of all, you could kill someone. Or yourself. Now how would that feel?

But, of course, as it's my style, I digress. I've decided to manifest making money on the internet. No more working for the man. No more working weekends. No more wasting hours and hours and days of my life doing something I could honestly care less about, all the while KNOWING that I could be doing so much more for myself and not working so hard. That's one of the problems with America. We accept that hard work is the only way to go. I know, I know. It's the "American Dream." It's the search for wealth, for power, for status. It's the willingness to step on your peers to get ahead; use other human beings for personal gains and then throw them away. All for what? A big house on the hill? A white picket fence? A big screen tv in the living room and a maid on the weekends and a family that doesn't know how to communicate with each other?

No thanks.

I'm not selling out, I'm just thinking smarter. I've always known there were other ways to find freedom.

Dear Adsense,

Please work for me! I want my weekends back and I want to travel the world and work from anywhere and someday soon return to Berlin so I can feel that energy again, like being re-born. Click away, folks, click away.

cycling trivialities

Well, I'm officially single again. To be exact, it's been a good few weeks now, since things ended, but in all honesty, it wasn't the cleanest of breakups. It wasn't the cleanest of relationships, either, but that's sometimes how the cards are played. The cord has been cut but the thing that was used to cut it didn't do such a good job. Think of a butter knife through rope - not so tidy; not so easy. But cut nonetheless, with, admittedly, still the tiniest of threads left. Each day that passes prompts the thread to fray. It may soon tear.

It was a short run, only two months, but it took a toll on me. I feel like I can breathe again, like not only my head but my torso is above water as well. I'm writing more, going out less, really doing things I want to do. Because after all - and not to sound narcissistic - but I am the most important person in my life, right? And you are the most important person in yours. Remember that, givers of the world. You can place as many breadcrumbs as you like in your curled up fist. Stretch it out, extend it, open your hand. But don't give it all away. Don't forget, you need to eat too.

Life is good. It's summer in Sacramento, and yet the weather remains moderate. I'm riding my bike more (still need to get a proper headlight though for night riding), spending more time with my family, and just plain doin' shit. I'm starting to get involved in improv and finding that I'm not only funny around friends but in front of an audience (albeit small) as well. When I was in Berlin, I was hounded monthly by a friend to come to his improv performances - not to watch but to participate in. He was part of a troupe, English speakers of course, who would get together and have shows in town. I never ended up going. I wanted to go, really did mean to go before I left, I swear! But for one reason or another I just never made it.

So why not now?

There's tons of things on my list, tons of things I want to do. In addition to improv, I want to try acting! I also want to get a motorcycle license. And, maybe most importantly, I need to actually sit down and start writing that god damn book. My 28th year. My year away. My year in Europe. If not just to get it down for myself, then to get it down for good friends who keep reminding me to do it.

Oh yeah, and I'm going to sign up for a German class in the fall. In preparation of going back to Berlin in the spring.

Some people seem to be living inside of a personal purgatory.

three years

The New York times says
we'll all be dead
in three years;
and the guns that could have procured power,
land, and excess
won't mean shit.

Ancient calendars aren't divided by lines
boxed up into little squares
stacked on top of each other
and on the sides
so that each day suffocates just a little more than the last.

Ancient calendars stood up and yawned
arms outstretched,
extending beyond themselves,
unfolding
deep breathing
like old wise men in the morning

sweat doesn't drip down my back
like it used to.
The seas rise and the ice melts and the
hole
gets
bigger

hyperbaric chambers are over-priced and
overrated
anyway.

love showcase showdown

So, unless you're a first time customer, you may have noticed I've updated my blog. I also posted the letter below. I need some changes, I need to get back to being me, I need to gather the pieces of myself that I chipped or shaved or cut off and gave away; I need to gather them back one by one or perhaps two by one and put them in my pockets, gently, where they can nap and huddle in the comfort and warmth and goodness that is me, alone.

For the past month I've felt nauseas, it's been real, it's consumed me. I have been stressed and although I almost hate to admit it here (is it the being honest or the admitting weakness that is difficult for me?) but it's been a bit rough. A close co-worker kept telling me I wasn't myself. She was right. I'm glad to have co- workers like this.

So he's up in Mendacino for two ( or was it three?) weeks to clear underbrush with a chainsaw or fight fires with hoses or some heroic showing, and already I'll have to break his heart and tell him I can't talk to him ever again, or at least we just can't be friends right now. And the bummer part about it is I know it will break his heart; he won't realize this is not the end of the world and there will be others and perhaps both of us have some work to do before entering into the next love showcase showdown.

And of course, in order to sleep, to not be stressed, I didn't call him like he asked; I didn't even text him. I just turned my phone off. And that's how it's going to have to be. Until I can tell him, tomorrow, when it's day time, when I'm not tired and he's not drunk, that I just need a break. Because I do. Need a break.

I also need someone, somewhere, eventually, who will treat me right.

goodbye

Richard,

I am going to say it here and I am going to say it loud and clear, I'm going to say it so that you understand, it's over. It didn't work. You sucked all my energy out and now I'm barely hanging on, so for my sake, please know that I can't talk to you, for I don't know how long. I'm so sorry to hurt you.

Thank you for making me laugh. Thank you for everything.

and suddenly I am no longer alone

Can you help me understand? Why I fell for you so quickly? There I was, minding my own business, trying to enjoy the day, and you had to come along and turn everything upside down. Can you please explain what did it for me? How I fell in love with you so quickly? Why you scare the shit out of me when I think about us - you and me, together, partners in this fucking thing - and the extent of the potential we have when we're together? The energy that is released from, swirls around like smoke, and combines between us? The passion that exists and the desire to experience more of this world together? Together.

Can you help me to understand how, sometimes, we are so far away from our potential. It's as if we complete the whole spectrum, pendulum swinging, back and forth.

I know that I long to be around you, and that the world is more vibrant when you're near me.

Can you please help me understand? Because I'm just at a loss. You said wanted me to write and so I wrote. You have my heart, it's ridiculous, silly, crazy, irrational, isn't it? But yet, I suppose this is how these things go. Sometimes. If you're lucky. Or cursed, depending on how you look at it.

So now what will you do? What will you do now, after I've professed this to you, after my heart has filled up and spilled over for you, for your energy. I'll take my heart from where it's cradled deep inside, protected, secluded, and a bit bruised, and I'll offer it up for you. Take it, I'll tell you, take it and be good to it. Don't tell me I have anything other than goodness for you. Don't think that I'm not right here next to you, don't feel like you are alone. Because you're not alone. I'm not going anywhere.

a hospital story

He was right. It has been a long time since I've written. Too long. I guess that's how it goes; life gets in the way from telling stories sometimes. You get busy with living, occupy yourself with creating memories and doing things to have stories to tell later. I have a few good ones - stories, that is - since the last time I posted. I could write about how I escaped from the Davis emergency room, IV still stuck in my arm like a pesky metal splinter attached to a tube. I pulled that fucker right out and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. It really wasn't that difficult. The most difficult thing about the experience, other from my worrying about how big the hospital bill was going to be, was wondering (and not knowing) what the hell was wrong with me. How about this: I'll begin at the beginning.

I was in Davis last week, with Richard. We were just sort of having a lazy day, a lazy afternoon, that involved a lot of lying around in the bedroom, and some not-so-much lying around in the bedroom, if you get my drift. We were sleeping - or at least, he was sleeping. I was trying to sleep. We had eaten an edible pot product and the effect was starting to really kick in. Unfortunately, I was on my period, and my cramps started kicking in as well. I remember asking him if he had any ibuprofen or asprin - he didn't. So I got up out of bed and left his room, thinking perhaps one of his roommates did or I could find some in the bathroom. There wasn't any within eye sight in the bathroom, so I ventured into the kitchen and found some on the shelf above the sink. At this point, the pain was intensifying, quickly. It was white hot. I remember almost doubling over at the sink as I popped 3 200mg pills into my mouth, turned on the faucet, cupped my hand under the water and brought it to my mouth. I swallowed the pills. The pain got worse. I started feeling very, very weak. Dizzy. Like, trouble walking, dizzy, like, hands against the hallway as I walked back toward his bedroom to hold me up, dizzy.

I stopped outside his bedroom door and put the my hand on the door handle. I paused. It was as if I knew that I wasn't going to be able to open the door. My body was getting ready to give out, preparing to re-boot itself, seconds away from a ctrl+alt+delete, physiological soft reset sort of thing. I knew I was close. I turned to look at Richard's roommate, who was sitting in his bedroom to the left, door open, playing guitar. "Can you help me open the door?" I asked him, forcing myself to speak up so he could hear me, straining to enunciate. "I think I'm going to faint" may have come out of my mouth, a mere mumble. Perhaps it never escaped my lips at all.

He jumped up and opened the door. I entered into a darkened room. The next thing I remember, I was crumpled up on the floor, back hurting, head hurting, wondering why I was crumpled up on the floor, wondering why my back and head hurt, confused, Richard standing over me, holding my face in his hands, trying to wake me up, repeating my name, attempting to lead me back to this world from wherever I had gone, attempting to get a hold of my quickly-escaping consciousness, trying to pull me out of the black and back into the blue. Everything was moving in slow motion and when he spoke to me, his voice sounded like it was coming from verrrrry far away, like the sound was traveling underwater through a tunnel.

temporary momentary replacement system

It happened again. Another door closes, has closed. This one spun around for just 2 days short of a month. He's exited now, and in his wake I've decided to write more. Red flags popped up all around and yet I chose to ignore them. Stupidly. Naively. It's strange how fast the heart can fill with warmth, brim to the top with lust, spill over the edge with other specific feelings one experiences when falling in love.

Or did I?

Did I ever tell you about the time my friend Navi, the long dreaded, glasses wearing, yoga doing, hippie from Minnesota, and I sold our brains to science for 30 Euro?

Or about one of my last parties in Berlin? The one wear friends from all over the globe and I met up in a kitchen in Kreuzberg to take some drugs and shoot some photos and drink some Club Mate before getting dolled up and strutting our way over to get naked and dance at the Kit Kat club? No? Get ready for it. That's the next entry.

heartbeats

I've never dated a drug dealer before. I guess there's a first time for everything. In all fairness, really, he's not. He was just filling in for a week while his roommate was out of town. In Amsterdam, of all places. But it meant wearing the shoes of a weed salesman's, and let me tell you, those shoes were big and lofty and hard to walk in. Or maybe that was just my perception of it.

So I found myself in his room late Friday night, waiting for clients to show up. Two were coming, and it was almost midnight. At least he was honest about it. The view from his bed was a map of Northern California, somewhere in the wilderness, somewhere where fires rage out of control. It was more a topographical display of the land, really, but it was all greek to me. In any case, the squiggly thin lines that made up the borders or the elevations or whatever it was were moving, slowly, morphing into each other, swaying one way and then the other. The effects of the mushrooms I had eaten earlier that afternoon were wearing off, but still, obviously, startlingly, prevalent. We waited. I stared at the map. He opened a window. I tried to eat some of the calzone that he had ordered, attempted to ingest a piece of the cheese and artichoke filled doughy thing that lay in the box on the floor, half-eaten remenants from earlier. He eats like a wild animal. With his hands. Fast. Determined to scarf as much down before the others come, whether the others are dogs or wolves or lost children.

I couldn't eat much of it at all, really. All I could do was put the box on my lap and stare down at it, unsure. I took a piece of it in my hands and only dirtied my fingers. I eventually gave up and set the thing back down on the floor.

And still we waited.

Midnight. On a Friday. In Davis. With an early morning of work looming around the corner, I stayed with him, anxious for the moment where there wouldn't be anyone coming 'round anymore and we had the night to ourselves. I'm always anxious to have the night to ourselves. I waited for both customers to come and go, curious as to what would transpire. It's no wonder curiosity killed the cat.

A bit past midnight, the first guy finally arrived. He came inside, in the house, and into the bedroom, into our space, sexual energy so thick you could cut it with a butter knife, with the half-eaten calzone on the floor and the music from the computer playing and an unmade bed and me in a paisely, floor-length, cleavage-revealing, stolen dress, holding up the wall, between the doorway and the dealer, where he sat with scales and equipment and baggies. I was uncomfortable. I thought I could handle it; thought it would be beneficial somehow to be the female presence during the deal. I was so wrong. Maybe it was the psychadelics, maybe it was the night, maybe it was just me, but I just couldn't do it. I excused myself while they finished up and small talked and shot the shit and walked into the living room. Drugs and money exchanged, the guy he left. I cordially threw out a goodbye from the living room (where I was hanging out, nervously, with the dogs, the brown one looking up at me, worried) and walked back into his bedroom.

I told him something about space being sacred to me, personal space, private space. The space that permeates the bedroom, that fills up the air and drifts in and out of the window. It's a place where energy is localized. It's becoming familiar, his bedroom, his energy, the maps on the walls and the clutter on the floor. Aided by music and incense and unmade bed and even calzone - I needed it to be mine; I needed it to be ours, and only ours. I told him I needed it to be completely free of all strangers, especially strangers who come calling for drugs. Desperately.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Just let me know what you need and I'll do it," he said.

The next customer didn't come close to the bedroom. Richard went out to meet him instead, into the kitchen or the hallway or the living room or I don't really care and don't know, it wasn't the bedroom and that was fine by me. I felt safe. Somehow he has the ability to constantly reassure me, and it works, well. Perhaps I do the same for him, just in different ways. He also listens to me, hears me, and sometimes even modifies his behavior (if modifications are necessary). It's not that I want to change him; I don't, I wouldn't change a thing. It's just a "Hi, my name is ___, it's nice to meet you, this is what I like and this is what I don't like" sort of exchange. The kind of thing that takes place in the beginning of a mutually beneficial re... you get my drift.

In the way that someone getting to know another human being is scary, he scares me. I like what I'm discovering and I long for more. I guess it's a gamble, every time. Sometimes you put in nothing, sometimes you put in a little, sometimes you put in everything. You either win big or get taken for everything you've got. The rest, the in-between, doesn't even really count, really. I don't know what's ahead of me; I don't know where my path will take me or who I'll end up walking with, all I know is that it's time to step up to the table and place some bets.